


with light in my head

by saltstreets



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Flashbacks, M/M, Rare Pair Week 2019, Reminiscing, canon-compliant poor choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 02:23:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: “Do you remember-” said Thomas, and Francis instinctively settled a little more comfortably into his chair.for Missing Moments Monday, "a memory shared".
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Thomas Blanky
Comments: 18
Kudos: 44
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2019





	with light in my head

**Author's Note:**

> Rare Pair Week! I'm excited, even if thanks to work eating my life, I'm already not sure I'm going to be able to keep up a fic-a-day posting. Some of these might end up being terribly late.
> 
> That also means that I also didn't do as much research for this as I would have liked. So if there are any Franklin scholars out there who spot some blatant error in the (hopefully vague enough not to be glaring) timeline set up here, please do drop me a line in the comments and I'll make rapid amendments. :D
> 
> The title is from [Fisherman's Blues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4UQJwd3awQ), because whoops, this was going to be a funny fic and then it got sad. Why does that always happen...anyways, the tune is a banger. A melancholy banger!

“Do you remember-” said Thomas, and Francis instinctively settled a little more comfortably into his chair. It was cold in the great cabin as it always was, but when Thomas adopted that tone Francis could have been seated beside a roaring fire in a smoky inn somewhere, clutching a mug of beer. Instead he was perched on a slightly uncomfortable wooden chair, gloved fingers wrapped about a chill glass of whiskey.

Across from him at the table Thomas was drinking gin, Francis knew out of respect for _Terror_’s limited resources even though he favoured whiskey as Francis did. Francis felt a twinge at the thought, but Thomas had never complained and each passing week Little’s already glum face grew glummer when he was asked to restock the cabin’s liquor cabinet, a sure sign that the store of bottles was beginning to dwindle. Francis couldn’t afford to be generous, not when he could feel it in his spine and Thomas knew, anyhow, what Francis thought of gin.

“-just back from the north with Parry, the expedition we met,” Thomas was saying. “I was staying in those awful rooms with the broken window.”

They had been returned barely a week from the Arctic and had still been delighted with their own cleverness at coming back alive, and with the friendship that had blossomed up between them so quickly on the sea and the ice.

“We went to that pub down the lane, between the hatter’s and the house with the cat that hated you-”

“That animal was possessed,” muttered Francis darkly, sipping at his drink. He still had faint, thin white scars down the back of his leg, some twenty-odd years old now, from where the cat had once clawed its way up the limb, shredding his uniform trousers in what Francis was sure had been a serious attempt on his life by the creature. Thomas had laughed himself sick and praised the cat for its enterprising nature. Francis had taken to liking dogs instead.

“-our first proper night out together after being at sea for so long, us so excited to sit and have a drink on dry land, and we got thrown out of the first pub we were in.” Thomas was laughing again now.

“That was entirely was your fault,” Francis said accusingly.

Thomas only shrugged unrepentantly. “Possibly. Who’s to say.”

“Me, I’m to say! I had never been physically _thrown out_ of a public house before-”

“A fine experience for any young sailor to have!”

“An _officer of her Majesty’s Navy,_ though, Thomas.”

Thomas grinned at him, wide and gleeful. “Oh Frank. I wish you’d been on that whaler with me, way back when. The things we used to get up to. No port was safe.”

They had picked themselves up off the cobblestones with great dignity and, swaying somewhat, had made their way two streets down to a smaller, less discerning establishment where they had proceeded to get even more drunk. Thomas had been recognised by a man with only one arm and half a nose who seemed inordinately pleased to see him, even buying them a round. Francis could recall being quite impressed with Thomas, seemingly known and respected by every salt-caked sailor in the British Isles, and even if he _had_ recently gotten them both thrown out of the admittedly not very high class establishment after getting in a loud and increasingly seditious political debate with a few of their fellow patrons, Francis had loved him a little bit already.

“We also nearly got thrown out of that other place, what was it called- the Crown or the Staff or something like that, after you got back from the Antarctic. Years later. That wasn’t my fault at all.”

“It was called the Rod and Orb, and if I recall you found that inordinately amusing at the time,” said Francis dryly.

“I would say that was because we had been drinking, but to be fair I still find it quite amusing,” said Thomas with a toothy grin.

“We’re also drinking now.”

“Ah, you’ve got me there.”

They _had_ nearly been thrown out of the Rod and Orb, although as Thomas said, neither of them had been to blame. A disagreement at the table next to theirs had spilled over and Francis and Thomas had been obliged to raise their voices and half-heartedly their fists in order to extract themselves from the growing fray.

It hadn’t escalated much further, however, and a few placating words had convinced the bartender that they’d been purely victims in the proceedings and they had been allowed to get back to their catching up. It had been a fine thing to see Thomas again after having been so long apart, and Francis had relished in recounting the time he’d spent down south. Francis had never been a particularly skilled story-teller, but Thomas had already known James Ross at the time and was interested in hearing about his exploits, and he was a good listener. He had the sort of fully-focused attention span that always made Francis want to rise to the occasion, especially after not having seen the man for so long.

James Ross hadn’t been the only member of the expedition that Thomas had been familiar with, either. He’d asked after several members of the crew, the circle of Arctic veterans in the Navy always interested in each other’s affairs. This gossip happened at all levels of the naval hierarchy, and while at the top of the chain it took place in gleaming, gold-encrusted dining chambers, hidden beneath formal inquiries after health and sideways sneers about who had wrecked what ship, or which shoulders would be finding themselves weighed down a few more pieces of braid come the summer, at the level which Thomas was more interested in it was a bit more jovial.

“Have you ever had a proper chat with that lad of yours, Jopson?” Thomas had asked. “I had the joy of speaking to him the other day when you’d all come in. He’s got a fair few tales to tell.”

“Jopson? Jopson was born under a cabbage leaf about a month before we set sail south,” Francis had scoffed, although mostly just to stir Thomas into a fervour because he did in fact know that Jopson had previously had an interesting career of his own before signing on to Ross’s expedition.

It had worked. Thomas had nearly flung his mug of beer in his haste to contradict, and only that most sacred of impulses, preservation of vittles, had stopped him. Thomas might let his hair and beard grow in every which way when not sternly encouraged by naval regulation to keep himself neat, and he may have preferred to dress more like the ancient mariner of rhyme than a respected mate onboard an advanced discovery vessel, but he always ate and drank with a care that belied the wild exterior.

“Now,” Thomas had said, pointing at Francis emphatically after a long and likely embellished recounting of some story Jopson had told him about the Mediterranean, “if that young Jopson only didn’t take things so bloody seriously, he’d be a rabble-rouser of the absolute highest order, you mark my words. You should let the boy relax more.”

“I don’t not let him do anything!” Francis had protested, “Jopson has a natural inclination to severity, if anything _he_ restricts _my _freedom of expression-”

“Not letting you go about in the same two shirts you’ve had since we was on the _Hecla_ doesn’t count as oppressing you, Francis-”

“Now I will not be criticised by the man whose socks are more darning than sock at this juncture, Thomas, I will not have it!”

“My socks are fine-”

They had drank and bickered, and bickered and drank for hours that night. They hadn’t seen each other in a long while, but they had slipped without a hitch back into old routines, as easy with each other as one might be in a pair of favoured old boots, worn but sturdy and the leather soft and comfortable with use. Francis and Thomas had never truly argued, and rarely ever even rubbed at each other wrong.

They had left the Rod and Orb more than a little drunk.

“We got ticked off by that fellow in the hackney that evening, you recall- I think I said something quite rude to him. But we were pedestrians, and you an officer of Her Majesty’s Navy thankyouverymuch, I think we deserved a little more respect.” Thomas drank deeply from his glass, clearly pleased with himself for declaring naval officers worthy of respect, although all in all officers were a class that he personally delighted in showing as little awe as possible. “And what’s more he had that ridiculous travelling cloak, that was-”

“Red, so red you could hardly look at it,” Francis completed with a grin. He could picture the angry man shouting out from the hackney coach after the two of them had stumbled across its path, forcing the poor driver to pull his horses up quite short indeed, presumably jostling his passenger badly. He could still even hear the indignant voice and Thomas’s decidedly rude reply. The two of them really had been very drunk. “Appalling.”

“Good that I’m not the only one who remembers our most idiotic evenings out.”

Of course Francis remembered. He also remembered how later that night they had fallen quite literally into the bed in the shabby set of rooms which were all that Francis could afford, both of them only on half-pay at the time waiting for the next ship to come in but too giddy with drink and each other to be sour about it. Thomas had slammed the door and Francis had said “Shhh!” in an exaggerated, wide-eyed whisper. Thomas had returned the expression with one of dramatised shock before dissolving into cackles and bringing Francis with him. They had toppled onto the sagging mattress and when the laughter had faded Francis had glanced over to find Thomas looking at him with warm affection.

“Alright?”

“Oh, fine,” Thomas had said blithely. “Now Francis, I’m fairly certain I’m going to kiss you, so if you’d prefer to throw me out on my ear I’d rather know now and save you the trouble by taking my leave before bothering to start the whole nuisance.”

Francis had not preferred throwing Thomas on his ear. He hadn’t said as much in so many words, but he thought he’d managed to get the point across quite well by instead choosing to pull his friend in closer and letting Thomas do his worst.

Thomas had always been like that. Unafraid of anything, be it ice or stormy weather or kissing a man with a single-minded focus that would have made Francis weak at the knees had they not already been safely horizontal.

It would have been overly generous to say that Thomas Blanky’s appearance was worthy of swooning over –his hair was a bit too unkempt, his smiles a bit too on the edge of concerning, his skin a bit too gnawed-on by years at sea– but Christ alive, if Francis didn’t look at the man and want nothing but to have him in all ways possible but most importantly at his side until they both inevitably died, likely somewhere cold and unmapped.

It helped that Thomas knew how to kiss a man breathless. It _certainly_ helped.

The thought of it now sent a curling heat down the back of Francis’s neck to settle comfortably in his belly, doing a better job of either the whiskey or Thomas’s reminiscences at warming him up.

One of Francis’s maps was still spread across the other end of the table and Thomas tugged it over to peer at it. Its blank edges looked back innocently.

“They ought to still put beasties in the corners of these things,” he said, tapping the thick paper.

Francis snorted. “It would have been a more accurate warning than anyone could have guessed.”

“Hm.” Thomas reached across for the gin bottle and refilled his glass with a generous pour. “Still. We have seen worse.”

“So you’ve already said.” Francis drained the last of his own tumbler and followed Thomas’s example. He was aware of Thomas watching him as he topped off the glass with the amber whiskey. Thomas wasn’t shirking tonight but he was still a full glass behind Francis. Once they had always matched each other, drink for drink. Francis couldn’t even be sure if now he was drinking more, or Thomas less, and just the fact of not knowing pointed towards the former.

Thomas didn’t say anything, just let Francis pour. The bottle of whiskey was just about two-thirds of the way empty now. Francis would have to have another fetched in the morning.

They talked for a while more about nothing in particular before the sharp, cold ringing of the ship’s bell alerted them to the lateness of the hour.

“Spend the night with me?” Francis asked, emboldened by the warmth in his belly. “Just to sleep. Or at least come fall asleep.”

“What, and have to creep out of your cabin in a few hours like a dishonest husband?”

“If that’s how you imagine yourself,” said Francis blithely. “But the mercury’s taken a dip in the past few days and I wouldn’t say no to the extra warmth.”

“Well,” said Thomas with a wink, “you know I can’t resist when you sweettalk me about the weather.”

The stewards had long since been sent to their bunks and so the two of them were just clearing the table of bottles and glasses when Thomas spoke. “I ought to say, Francis…” he said, holding the sentence in check in an uncharacteristic fashion, and Francis suddenly knew with a cold stopping of his heart what Thomas was going to say, or at least the shape of it. He rebelled against the idea immediately and stubbornly.

“It’s late and I’m tired, Tom, can whatever it is not wait until morning?” Francis said, using the nickname in a manoeuvre that he knew was effective, if cheap.

Sure enough Thomas’s gaze softened and he swallowed the words on his tongue. “Yeah, alright.”

“Will you come to bed, still?” The qualifier gave him away, and he was certain Thomas knew that Francis was well aware of the conversation that hadn’t been had, that needed to be had. It was getting late in more ways than one. The Harrison timepiece ticked in its wooden cabinet in the corner and the ship’s bell tolled steadfastly in the icy arctic air, but a far more pressing clock had just a moment ago been tucked safely away with the other bottles and cut-crystal tumblers, a sandglass that was quickly draining and held no sand.

“’Course. Wouldn’t be doing to have the captain getting cold in the night,” Thomas teased, and for the moment Francis was let off the hook as easily as that.

Tomorrow, he thought as they settled beneath the blankets, the heat of Thomas’s body slotted so neatly around his and providing so much more comfort than any layer of down or wool ever could, tomorrow he would offer Thomas the whiskey as well, and then if the man still stuck to gin it would be his own fault for being too kind. And he would only drink as many glasses as Thomas did, that was a promise.

“Stop thinkin’, Francis,” Thomas rumbled in his ear, beard scratching at Francis’s neck as he drew him in closer. _Terror_’s narrow bunks made for close quarters, but even had they been buried in the centre of the largest bed on the face of the earth, with room for ten men to sleep comfortably never knowing the others were there, Francis wouldn’t have had Thomas anywhere but wrapped around him, one leg tucked over Francis’s knee and his hand flat against Francis’s chest as if satisfied to have found his heartbeat.

“You’re an awful octopus, Tom,” Francis had complained once, not really irritated at all by the fact, and Thomas had proceeded to make a series of increasingly outrageous and filthy jokes on the theme until Francis had been forced to smother him with a pillow to shut him up.

“You know I’ll never hold it against you, Frank.” Thomas’s voice was so quiet that Francis felt the words more than he heard them, the low vibration of sound against his back. “I just worry it’ll be the death of you. And I’d sooner die myself that see that.” He sighed, a warm puff of air at the back of Francis’s neck, and pressed a kiss against his hair.

That wouldn’t happen, Francis thought to himself fiercely, sleep and drink tugging insistently on his heavy eyelids. He wouldn’t allow that to happen. He’d give up the bottle entirely before he let Thomas Blanky to come to any harm. His miserable heart might be pickled but that it knew. That it would not stand for.

He’d give up the bottle entirely. He was sure of it.


End file.
